


On Christmas Day (In the Morning)

by Shachaai



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Child NA bros and baby Sey, Christmas Fluff, FACES family, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 21:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20032837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: Christmas is always different with a baby in the house.





	On Christmas Day (In the Morning)

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from my tumblr (winter 2016).

Christmas begins with crying, an early morning wail that rises in the house before the sky has even lightened to a predawn grey.

Arthur is woken by the sound almost immediately, but, bone-tired after a late night wrapping gifts that he _ had _ intended to finish earlier before he had been waylaid by Francis’ friend, Antonio, inviting them all over to his place last-minute for an impromptu Christmas Eve meal, he is too sleep-fuddled for a long while to even realise where he _ is, _ never mind that someone should really be getting up to deal with the crying.

Luckily for Arthur, his husband is there to remind him. A grumbling shadow in the dim bedroom, Francis sleepily flings one of his arms (and a great mound of the duvet) backwards at Arthur in the bed behind him, thumping Arthur on the shoulder. “Your turn.”

Arthur makes a sleepy sound in protest, pushing some of the duvet out of his face. “It’s _ Christmas. _ ”

Face still buried in his pillow, Francis thumps him again. _ “Your. Turn._”

Arthur gets up. The bedroom is _ freezing _ after the warmth of Francis and the bed, even when Arthur pulls his dressing-gown on over his pyjamas, and the hallway outside is even worse.

“Daddy?” A small blond head pokes out at Arthur as he pads off to the nursery and his daughter’s wailing awaiting him there - Alfred, Arthur’s youngest boy, looking too awake for the hour and frowning petulantly.

Arthur smiles wearily at his son. “Good morning, Alfred.”

Alfred, four and a half years old and wearing his favourite blue and green spaceship pyjamas, does not look terribly impressed with his father’s _ good morning. _ In fact, since he has not dragged Binky, his stuffed bunny toy, from the bed with him to the bedroom door so he can stare down Arthur, one can assume Alfred is feeling too confrontational to be impressed at _ anything. _ (Binky, Arthur has long since realised, tends to be forgotten whenever Alfred is too focused on something else.)

Alfred’s frown deepens. “Daddy, _ you _ said Christmas morning didn’t start until 7.”

“And it doesn’t,” says Arthur, because that is _ the rule _ he and Francis have taught their boys this year - after last year, when Alfred had dive-bombed his parents’ bed at 4am and dragged his twin brother, Matthew, with him -, and that is what they are sticking to.

“But it’s not 7,” says Alfred, much more accusingly.

“And so it’s not Christmas yet,” says Arthur, because it’s far too early to be arguing with his son - _ especially _ whilst his daughter is still crying, wanting fed. He starts moving towards the nursery again. “Go back to bed.”

“But _ you’re _ awake,” Alfred insists, following Arthur down the hallway. “And so’s Angelique.”

“_That _ is because Angelique is only a few months old, Alfred, and does not _ understand _ the meaning of Christmas yet. To her, it’s the same as any other morning, and in the mornings, she is hungry.” Arthur continues into the nursery, already running through his mental checklist: check Angelique, powder, water, shake, warmer, shake, test, feed… “Go back to bed.”

“But I’m _ up _ now!”

“And it will take you less than five minutes to march along the corridor back to your bed and lie _ down _ again.” Since he is looking down at his baby girl when he talks to Alfred, Arthur does his very best to keep his tone mild. Anger will just make Angelique cry more, and already his little girl has her face screwed up red with her tears, small hands and sushi-roll onesie-clad feet thumping the crib below her.

“But -” says Alfred.

_ “Go,” _ says Arthur, and tries not to sigh too much when he hears his second child turn about and stomp out of the nursery in a sulk, making as much noise as possible all the way back along the hallway to the bedroom he shares with his twin.

Seeing one of her fathers leaning over her, Angelique stops crying with a soft little hiccup, reaching up her grabby fingers to Arthur and his tired smile.

Christmas morning ends up beginning at 6. Angelique is much happier after being fed her morning bottle, but refuses to go back to sleep when Arthur tries to put her back in her crib after she is burped. She grizzles until her father holds her again, and coos happy nonsense the moment she is snuggled back up in Arthur’s arms, her dark curly head settled quite comfortably against his shoulder.

Feeling _ some _ Christmas spirit surface groggily in his soul, Arthur takes the baby downstairs with him rather than taking her through to his and Francis’ bedroom - at least _ one _ of the adults in the house might as well have some sleep. He moves quietly around the kitchen, preparing tea for himself, coffee for Francis, and candy cane hot chocolate for Alfred and Matthew - and enjoys precisely 13 minutes and 14 seconds of peace with Angelique, him sipping his milky tea and her gumming happily on the plastic whale chew-ring he’d scooped up from her play-mat and given to her along the way, before there are two very familiar _ thumps _ from overhead (one room-rattling, and a more tentative lighter second), the floorboards creaking upstairs.

Arthur waits.

A small, blond head peers cautiously into the kitchen - Matthew’s, this time, his face half hidden behind his favourite stuffed polar bear toy and sleep-tousled curls. “Daddy…?”

“Good morning, Matthew,” Arthur says evenly, and does a magnificent job of pretending he can’t see a second shadow hiding behind his eldest son, Alfred clearly not willing to risk getting into trouble for _ still _ being out of bed before 7 o’ clock.

Matthew smiles, wide and sweet: the most unassuming sacrificial lamb. “Is it Christmas now?”

…Oh, _ why not. _ Most of the sodding house is wide awake already anyway.

Arthur sighs, and hopes next year _ the rule _ might actually see some use. Angelique should be sleeping until later in the morning by that point. “Take Alfred, and go and wake your papa. Tell him everybody else is up. _ Then _ it can be Christmas.”

Although still sleepy, Matthew’s sweet smile turns _ brilliant, _ as behind him Alfred gives up on lurking and _ whoops _ in delight, immediately turning on his heel and pelting back upstairs to his parents’ bedroom, sounding for all the world like a herd of excited elephants. Matthew follows after him at a lighter, pattering run, barely heard over the soft gurgle Angelique makes in Arthur’s arms.

When he looks down at her again, the little girl takes her chew-ring from her mouth, pressing its sticky drool-covered rim against the bare skin of Arthur’s neck so she can beam up at him, chubby-cheeked and deceivingly cherubic.

“Merry Christmas to you too,” Arthur tells his daughter, and kisses her forehead with a faint smile, blithely ignoring the sounds of his grumbling husband being dragged out of bed overhead.


End file.
